10 
times from very strong muscular, irregularities ; remains excitable for 
some time, then gradually becomes torpid. 
In small medicinal doses we may expect to find the period of 
excitement and the torpidity to be the only marked symptoms. In 
cats and dogs the excitement is not marked, but vomiting of a violent 
kind occurs. 
Mr. Moffat, chemist, of Brisbane, has a small quantity of the pituri. 
The distance of the neighbourhood from which it was obtained causes 
me to hope that before long seeds of the plant may be collected, and 
some exact botanical knowledge of v, and the localities in which it 
grows, may be forthcoming. 
Mr. IIodgkinson’s Letter about Pituri. 
Kangaroo Point, 
15 February, 1877. 
J. Bancroft, Esq., M.D. 
Dear Sir, 
I have much pleasure in giving you the information I possess 
relative to the herb, specimens of which I had the honour of giving 
you. Its name, as pronounced by the natives in the district from 
whence it is procured, is “ Petcherie.” The locality in which I found 
it was approximately latitude 22° 53' 51", longitude 138° in situ. 
Owing to my ignorance of botany I can give you no other description 
than this. It is a bushy shrub, attaining, in the specimens from which 
I plucked the parcel given you, a height of eight or nine feet, with 
dark thick glossy foliage, leaves of lanceolate form and growing from 
the base in a regular rounded outline, conferring quite an ornamental 
appearance. The locality in which it was noted was a sandy spinifex 
( Triodia pungens) flat, flanked by red sand-hills, miserable country, 
either destitute of water or in the vicinity of saline springs. The 
whole district, lying between Spencer’s Gulf and the Gulf of Carpen- 
taria as it does, bears in a multiplicity of marine remains, strong proof 
that the connection between the points referred to was at (speaking 
geologically) no distant date, much closer than at present. Even now 
salt springs are abundant, and in droughts the surface water existing 
becomes unfit for consumption. To the natives the habitats of this 
herb are known by the names of pecherie and pecheringa, and their 
precise position neither coaxing nor presents would induce them to 
disclose. In common with other savages under similar circumstances, 
petcherie and pecheringa are protected by legends from curious 
inquirers, and the district itself is sufficiently inhospitable to repel 
intruders, as I had made two days’ stages without water when I 
gathered the specimens I was so fortunate as to obtain. The resident 
natives carry on a considerable traffic in this plant, representatives of 
tribes from other quarters coming to procure it. It is used after being 
sweated beneath a coating of fine sand, as a narcotic stimulant, strictly 
kept for the solace of the old men or for occasions when long privations 
have to be endured or some solemnity performed. As I never had 
the slightest misunderstanding with the natives I am unable to speak 
of its employment to excite a combRtive spirit. After being sweated 
in the sand as before stated, it is dried, roughly pounded up and 
